Old Friends
by Igorina
Summary: Aziraphale meets an old companion in the most unexpected of places. Crossover with Lord of the Rings.


Disclaimer: I own none of the characters of settings to be found herein.

A/N: This ficlet was written in response to a challenge from somebody on my LJ flist.

The Horse and Pentagram had stood in Lower Tafield for nearly three hundred years. Nobody was quite sure as to how it had acquired its unusual name; but many of the more dark eyeliner inclined of the students at the newly opened University of Tadfield(1) had been rather disappointed to discover that it was a cosy little place that had prints of oil painted horses on the wall, novelty pint mugs on the beams and a karaoke night every other Friday.

Aziraphale thought it was rather charming in a dishevelled and downmarket sort of way; though he did draw the line at actually ordering any of the pub meals available. After all, whilst it may be possible to wish away any unwanted extras on their plate, the instinctive knowledge of how unsanitary the kitchen facilities were was enough to put any self-respecting angel off their food. It was while he was mentally debating whether a brief moment of divine scolding vis-à-vis the dreadful standards of food hygiene in the establishment would constitute unforgivable interference in the Antichrist's affairs, that somebody caught his eye.

The old man with the long beard, who was currently sitting next to the radiator, looked terribly familiar. He was dressed in a rather conspicuous long white robe and smoking a pipe of the variety that went out of fashion around two hundred years ago, yet nobody appeared to be paying him the slightest bit of attention.

It couldn't be.

"Olorin?"

The man looked up.

"Aziraphale. Is that you?"

The angel's dumfounded expression transformed into one of delight. "Olorin dear chap, I would never have expected… I mean, what on earth are you doing here?"

The man raised his bushy eyebrows. "That, old friend, is a long story."

Aziraphale, recognising a prompt when he heard one ordered a pint of the pubs finest ale and proceeded to carry it over to the table next to the radiator, miraculously managing not to spill a drop, and set it down in front of the man.

"Not as good as Butterbur's," he proclaimed, on draining the glass.

"They make it in factories here."

"Factories? That cannot be."

"I'm afraid it is." Aziraphale made a mental note not to mention that he himself was the proud owner of a small computer. "Anyway, you still haven't told me what you're doing in Tadfield, of all places."

"There seems to have been another brief merging of the worlds."

Few entities not of an occult or ethereal persuasion are aware that the earth is just one of many worlds given life by the creator, and whilst heaven and hell are only officially occupied with earthly and internal affairs alone, it is not unusual for both celestial and diabolic agents of the two realities to occasionally encounter one another. Aziraphale had first met Olorin - otherwise known as Gandalf, Mithrandir, Grey Pilgrim, Storm Crow and more recently 'That Bastard Responsible For Destroying My Bloody Ring' - sometime during the Second Age of Arda after inadvertently wandering through a narrative rift(2).

"Oh dear, not too much damage on your side, I hope?"

"Not great. Though a number of startled young women from this world have wandered through, and temporarily addled in their minds believed themselves to be betrothed to the son of King Thanduil."

"They've been safely returned home I hope."

"Indeed, though not without protest in some cases. I however, have come here in search of a creature I had previously believed to have perished."

"Dangerous?"

"He can be. Though not to the likes of us."

"And you haven't found him?"

"Not yet. Though I have cause to believe he's hiding in what the people here call 'a sewer'."

On hearing the word 'sewer' Aziraphale, who had been about to offer to lend assistance in finding the errant creature, decided that on balance the whole thing was probably best left in the hands of those with more knowledge of the dark forces of Arda, or failing that, somebody who didn't happen to be Aziraphale.

"Anyway," he said, trying to change the subject before his aid was explicitly sought and a moral obligation to help heaped upon him. "How have you been? It must have been over three-hundred years since I last saw you."

"Indeed, many things have happened since then."

Gandalf proceeded to recount the War of the Ring in great detail. With special attention paid to his altercation with the Balrog.

"Well, I must say it was unforgivably impolite of the thing to attack like that. Not even a 'Trespassers will be violently assailed with flaming whip' sign on the entrance." said Aziraphale, shaking his head.

"And what of you, Aziraphale. Have you done battle with the forces of darkness of late?"

Aziraphale though on this for a moment. He really didn't feel that last week's brief skirmish with Crowley was really up to Balrog smiting standards. Though if quizzed on the matter he would have maintained that the accidental spilling of red wine on a poor innocent first edition was almost as bad as dealing with an outraged embodiment of shadow and flame.

"Well," he said eventually. "There was an incident fifty years ago when I walked into the shop to find three minor demons from the third circle lying in wait for me."

"An ambush. Did you command them back to the shadow?"

"In a manner of speaking. I hit them all over the head with a hardback copy of The King James Bible and told them to get out of my sight."

"And they fled back to the pit."

"Oh yes," said Aziraphale, smiling smugly as he recalled Crowley's description of the manner in which the three would be assailants were still being ridiculed by the denizens of the underworld for their inability discorporate even one unsuspecting angel.

"Two fallen creatures from this creation strayed into Aman a year ago. They were most impolite, especially to Lady Nienna."

"What happened?"

"They called her a, what was it now? A 'whining cow' I believe was the term. In the end Lord Manwe decreed that they should be sent to the void until an official apology was received. Though I believe that Lady Varda wished to enact harsher measures."

"Oh?"

"She threatened to instruct them in the ways of proper conduct by placing a star in an extremely unorthodox position."

Aziraphale couldn't help himself from snorting with laughter. He had heard on the celestial grapevine that a humiliated Beelzebub had been forced to send an official note of apology after Hastur and Ligur had caused an interdimensional diplomatic incident and been imprisoned in a foreign jail, but this was even more amusing than he could have ever imagined.

"Of course," said Gandalf, dropping his voice to a low whisper. "I have heard it told that on release one of the fallen creatures was furious with the other for 'flirting', of all things, with Morgoth Bauglir."

This statement left Aziraphale picturing things that he really didn't want to imagine yet couldn't seem to avoid envisioning.

"And how's life in the west suiting you old boy?" he said, deciding that matters of Hastur, Ligur and their unholy relationship were best left alone. 

"Very well. Though I am afraid that the pipe weed I have managed to grow there is nowhere near as good as the Hobbit's leaf."

"I suppose that one can't have everything, as it were," said Aziraphale, wondering if trying to grow Longbottom Leaf in Aman would be a little like trying to make crème brulee in heaven. You could do it, but it just wouldn't be the same. He'd been rather fond of pipe weed the last time he tried it, though Crowley had informed him that on his return from that particular visit to Arda he'd been giggling inanely, blithering on about how much he loved everybody and had proceeded to eat the entire contents of Crowley's larder. He had thought it probably best leave it alone after that.

"And you. You still have your library, I take it?"

"It's a bookshop actually," said Aziraphale. It was difficult to tell from Gandalf's expression whether he believed him or not.

"But you still seek out rare manuscripts."

"Oh yes." Aziraphale nodded enthusiastically.

"It's just that I've recently come in to possession of _An Illustrated History of the First Age_ and have no pressing use for it myself."

Aziraphale gasped "Oh, I really couldn't accept a gift like that," he said, in tones that very clearly suggested that he definitely could.

"Then how about a trade?" said Gandalf.

"A trade? Well, yes that would be more proper. What sort of thing do you have in mind?"

"I've been made aware of a way to travel from creation to creation by means of something called 'L-Space'. Aman is a fine place, but it can on occasions get rather dull, and there is no way for me to return to Arda. Elrond has told me that you, he and a few others often used this L-Space…"

"And you were wondering if I could show you the ropes, so to speak."

"There are ropes involved?"

"Figure of speech. Though I'm curious, why not just ask Elrond?"

"Ah," said Gandalf, suddenly looking ever so slightly uncomfortable. "I seem to have inadvertently allowed ash to spill onto one of his scrolls on Dwarven bardic traditions. I feel it would be best not to bother him for another few hundred years."

Aziraphale's eyes widened in horror. "You mean you smoking in a repository of irreplaceable ancient scrolls?"

"I am afraid that I have made that mistake."

"Well, you certainly can't go around smoking in L-Space."

"I would not dream of earning your wrath."

"Angel's aren't capable of wrath," corrected Aziraphale, being extremely frugal with the truth. "We smite in a righteous fashion."

"Of course, forgive my mistake," said Gandalf, whose expression quite clearly said 'I don't believe a word of it'. "I was merely recalling the fashion in which you so righteously smote the fallen Maia that attempted to assail us on your second visit before last."

"They were a frightfully unpleasant lot."

"Indeed. Will you help me?"

Aziraphale considered the request. The thought of adding _An Illustrated History of the First Age_ to his collection was enough to make him salivate and go weak at the knees. On the other hand knowing the mysteries of multidimensional L-Space was a weighty responsibility and he knew that he should not divulge its secrets to those who were so careless around books. "Well," he said, eventually. "You'd have to give me your word that you wouldn't smoke, eat, drink or talk too loudly."

"And that I could do."

"In that case," said Aziraphale, mentally debating whether to put this new tome in the safe or the climate controlled container. "I believe we have a... er… deal."

"Excellent. Now will you partake of some pipe weed?"

"I better not. It doesn't seem to really agree with me."

There was the sound of somebody clearing their throat.

They both glanced up into the embarrassed faces of two young men.

"Adam!"

"Hello Mr. Aziraphale."

Aziraphale wondered exactly how he was going to explain this to Gandalf.

"We've come to apologise to Mr. Gandalf," said Adam. "It's our fault that this rift thing's opened, isn't it Brian?"

Brian mumbled something inaudible.

"What on earth happened?"

"Brian gave me some of his special tea and didn't tell me what was in it. Anyway, you know what I'm like when I don't know what I'm doing."

Aziraphale nodded. He remembered the magic mushroom incident four years ago with great clarity.

Gandalf looked at them quizzically.

Aziraphale was momentarily saved from having to explain the apocalypse debacle and his role in it by the sudden crashing open of the door.

A terrible smell filled the room.

In the doorway stood a seething demon in dark glasses, holding a small, rather pathetic looking creature at arms length.

"Precioussss," shrieked the creature, cowering from the faint glow from one of the table lamps.

"I," hissed Crowley, almost shaking with rage. "I found thisss… thisss thing in the back ssseat of my car. It'll never feel clean again."

"Friend of yours?" enquired Gandalf.

Aziraphale felt a tension headache coming on. "You could say that."

(1)It was, Adam Young's parents agreed, a wonderful coincidence that a brand new university had opened its doors in the area just in time for Adam and his friends to attend.

(2)See D. Uberwald's _Plot Contrivances and How to Use Them_ for further discussion of this phenomenon and others like it.


End file.
